by Aiden Bates
“Hey, friends, I have some news,” Greg says, raising his voice over the conversations along the table, and watching each face turn to him over the demolished dishes of food. “Thanks for the attention, boys,” Greg says with a smile. “I have a question first though, something I’ve been wondering, but it’s seemed inappropriate to ask before now. Who here slept with Alex?”
Glenn looks really confused right now, this is not the announcement he was expecting. Clarkie looks around, then at Sam specifically, and then at Greg like, Duh, before raising his hand and saying, “Well, I did, once or twice, right?”
Sam starts laughing so quickly he snorts and throws his arm around Clarkie’s shoulders. “I forgive you,” Sam says, which starts him and everyone else laughing. Good old Sam, he should have been a comedic actor, he’s the best joker they all know, and was always at his best with Alex, when they could play off each other. “Besides, me and Alex had a … not even a thing, a weekend, he came out to see me on set once, I think he got a little star-struck about it all, it was just … we didn’t even undress,” Sam says, his facing blushing red above his mustache. “We jerked each other off on the set, which is about what everyone in the business does, it was nothing.”
Everyone is laughing again.
“Me too,” Greg says. “Back at college, really drunk, barely remember half of it, but it definitely happened. They rest of you were on that trip to Cedar Point, and I guess we drowned our sorrows of missing you.” Greg shrugs. He really doesn’t remember that night very well. He remembers Alex’s tongue in his mouth (it did not taste good, but Greg is sure his mouth was equally beer-y and gross), and he remembers Alex nearly falling off those slim college dorm beds trying to fuck him with gusto that only a perfectly sober man should ever try (they were far from sober), he remembers starting the deed but not finishing (literally he remembers they both quit before anyone came and then passed out), and then he remembers waking up and leaving, and pretending for the rest of Alex’s life that all they did was crash together, not fuck, hahaha—wow what a blackout. Greg wonders what was so embarrassing about it that they couldn’t just laugh about it together. He’d love to have Alex back to laugh about it now.
“Oh my god, you sluts, I never did it with Alex, I’ve never been with anyone but Kevin!” This is Glenn making a confession, mostly because two glasses of wine make him bold with honesty, and he’s so flustered by how this conversation is going that he tells everyone. Greg knew this already, Glenn has told him just about everything, and the rest of the gang probably suspected (it looks like someone between Jeff and Sam has lost a bet the way they lock eyes after hearing this), and of course now Clarkie and Julian are looking at each other and damn near pitying Glenn—they’re both over a decade younger than Glenn, and they’ve gotten more action. They seem to congratulate each other. Greg smiles to himself to see everyone so united like this, through memories of Alex especially—it’s almost like he’s still here with them.
“I would be willing to bet,” Kevin says when the laughter starts to die down, “that I’m the only one who actually fucked Alex. It sounds like the rest of you got more than you gave.” He looks at Greg when he says this, briefly, and Greg bites down on a smirk. He’s right! Of course Greg was the one receiving. Interesting to know that Kevin apparently is the giver wherever he goes. Greg nods slightly in acknowledgement of all this, and then Kevin looks to Glenn. “It was before we met. Literally it was first week, first day, just after orientation, like exactly after it. We knew everyone else was going to get free food at that parents’ send-off thing, and we took advantage of the moment.”
Glenn’s mouth is open in absolute wondrous scandal. “You mean the orientation that warned us to wait at least a week before hooking up because you didn’t know who these people were yet, and you might have to interact with them for the next four years?”
Glenn is scolding Kevin, but kisses him the second he’s done.
“That’s the orientation I mean, yes. And forget four years, I knew that guy for … for a lifetime.”
Everyone quiets after that. Whatever Kevin might have said a few days ago, he corrected himself to be as accurate as possible. He did indeed know Alex for one too-short lifetime. They all did.
Jeff, of course, is the one who ends their moment of silence about Alex.
“I guess I’m just not Alex’s type, that fucker, it’s not like I didn’t try to be.”
Everyone starts laughing harder than ever at that; Jeff is happy to be everyone’s type. Julian seems to appreciate that and kisses him for it. Greg is glad that they’re happy, however they’re managing it. It’s so much easier to sympathize with happiness when he has it, finally, as well.
The reminiscing about Alex having wound down, Greg rips the band-aid off of his real news: “I imagine most of you have heard by now that I was hoping to get pregnant this weekend, not to rope anybody in for support,” he glances up at Sam in saying this and gets a smile, “but just because you’re the men I trust most in this world. I was prepared to go home and keep trying to meet the right guy the old-fashioned way, but as you know, our numbers are about to dwindle drastically, and you guys really are my best prospects, my only prospects. It turns out the guy who’s going to help me out is … Kevin.”
After that all eyes are on Kevin, and Glenn. Kevin nods to acknowledge this fact, and Glenn takes up the explanation of it, leaning against Kevin and taking up his hand as he does. For someone who’s never been with anyone else, he’s fine that he’s the only one of his kind among them and doesn’t judge any of them for it. No wonder his kids are such sweethearts, they always know that someone’s at home who will love them exactly as they are.
“This was my idea, and I think it’s important,” Glenn says. “We have to think about the future, and about our reasons for living, and about each other, as a family. We’re going to be living right on top of each other”—Jeff snorts and it looks like Julian pinches him somewhere to control him, that’ll be useful going forward—“and we can’t be selfish, we can’t think that if something is yours it isn’t mine anymore, we can’t be independent and live, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m happy about that in a sense. When I think of all the time we’ve spent apart”—he squeezes Kevin’s hand, but looks at them all so they know how much he includes the whole group when he says—“I think that’s time we’ve wasted, and it’s time that’s way shorter than we ever know, and I won’t make that mistake again if I can help it. Greg wants to be a father, Kevin’s already a wonderful one, and it’s not like they’re going to run off with each other in the future, is it?”
The table’s laughing again now, and Greg laughs so hard that he can blame his tears on that (though his emotions have come for him again too). Kevin locks eyes with him as Greg wipes those tears away and says, “Well, there’s our plan wrecked.”
“Yeah, why didn’t you marry someone dumber than Glenn, it’s botched the whole long-con we were working on.”
Everyone else is laughing, and Kevin kisses Glenn’s cheek as Kevin gestures for Greg to come over. Greg also kisses Glenn’s cheek. That’s about as far as their passions for each other run, just a mutual amount of love and respect for Glenn, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be friends in their own right and enjoy the task at hand. For all the unpleasant work that will come with surviving the end of the world, purely procreative sex is far from the worst.
11. Sam Makes a Decision
After Greg’s big announcement at dinner, and everyone’s slightly scandalous revelations about Alex, Sam and Clarkie go to bed in a new mood. Everything is new between them, to be fair, they’ve only known each other for about a minute, but this is just a strange situation altogether. Clarkie seems mostly amused by it all.
“You got with Alex too, then,” he says, lacing his hand in Sam’s as they leave the big house for the guest garage. Talk about moving fast, the second they kissed Sam moved out here with his suitcase and never looked back.
“Barely,” Sam says. “It was just a pair of handjobs between friends, more fun than using your own hand, but no more significant than that. I never even kissed the guy, not on the mouth at least.”
Clarkie smiles as they let themselves into the garage and start to unwind. They take off their shoes, their shorts, and then they crawl into bed. Nobody thinks to brush their teeth, though Kevin did think to have them stock up on toothpaste for eternity, and to get mint seeds in case they can start growing stuff underground. Sam doesn’t think too hard about it all, it makes him want to pop more pills, and he already knows he’ll have to wean himself off of that crutch; recreational narcotics are not on the list for survival. Any drugs they take down are for emergency use only, for when people are in physical pain, not existential pain. Oh well.
“I bet you would have liked kissing Alex, he was pretty good at it,” Clarkie says, leaning over Sam to start kissing him as he speaks of it.
“Better than me?” Sam asks. He’s trying to smile now too. They didn’t bother turning on the light when they got back. They came in by the light of the big house, and that’s all they can see by, it comes in through the curtainless windows.
“Different than you, it’s hard to compare,” Clarkie says. He continues kissing Sam, probably thinking half about Alex, since that’s all he really seemed to hear during dinner, the stuff about Alex. It makes sense; Alex is the only reason Clarkie is here, and no one really knows how he actually felt about the guy, no one bothered to ask. Did he always assume this was just some temporary fling, or did he actually fall in love with Alex a little bit? Practically it doesn’t matter either way, but emotionally, of course, it does now, at least to Sam.
The stuff about Alex was only half of what Sam heard though. The other part, the stuff about Greg in some weird fertility triangle with Kevin and Glenn, that’s the big news as far as Sam is concerned. He doesn’t have a problem with it; he likes everyone involved and if that’s what works for them, more power to them. It doesn’t bother him that it would have been him and Greg without his vasectomy either, because of course now he has Clarkie, and he never really felt any spark for Greg. Somehow the guy is too good looking to find attractive, that’s the only way Sam can explain it. It’s like he’s not a real option, like having a crush on a guy in a magazine, not even a TV show like Sam himself is in. When you see people on film, you can still see their flaws, you can see them move, but when you see people on billboards, you’re mostly seeing a lie, a big photo-shopped still image of someone you know you could never meet in real life. Greg looks like that, and the fact that Sam has known him for years doesn’t make him any more believable. Sam would have been happy to sleep with him, and to let him have a kid with Sam’s genes if he wanted one and didn’t expect any parental input from Sam, but … maybe it’s all for the best that they couldn’t do it, if that’s how Sam feels about it. Maybe it all worked out the way it had to, regarding Greg.
The question of kids, however, and the talk of the future, makes Sam think of something else. He didn’t want kids at all before, he wanted to be an unencumbered actor and never roped into supporting a kid he never meant to have with some hanger-on or fan who caught him unawares. Now though … it’s a whole new future. Does Sam really want to stare down eternity knowing that no matter what, he can never see any kids? In the old world he could have adopted kids if he got itchy for raising someone, but now if he wants a kid, all he can do is ask his friends if he can borrow theirs. That’s not the same. He’s looking at a lifetime of being Uncle Childless. What if Clarkie wants kids someday? He’ll go to Kevin too, or god forbid, Jeff? Sam doesn’t want to sit around useless, watching someone else keep Clarkie happy because he can’t.
“Hey, how do you feel about kids? Do you want any?” He asks Clarkie this when they break briefly for air, before Clarkie moves this show below their waists. “I mean, I know you are a kid yourself still, but assuming we live, and you get older … did you ever want kids yourself, did you ever think about it?”
“I figured, I don’t know, someday. Like eventually I figured I might get bored enough, or have too much money and free time, and think kids sounded like a good idea, but like you said, I’m still a kid. I’ve got to learn how to take care of myself first.”
Sam nods, and shifts beneath Clarkie to feel the weight of him, to appreciate that dense young body for what it is now, and he doesn’t discuss too much more about what he’s thinking tonight. He calls Clarkie a baby, feints as if he’s going to spank him, but he doesn’t care very much for role playing, not when sex is still such a kick to him just doing it the regular way. He wouldn’t turn down a stimulant or two, but he doesn’t need anything weird to prick up his interest. Now more than ever, just being alive and healthy and (relatively) young is everything.
Sam decides to do an extra chore the next day when he’s out gathering supplies. He doesn’t want to tell Clarkie about it, because honestly he doesn’t know Clarkie that well yet, and doesn’t want to pressure the kid into something that Sam himself doesn’t know if he wants yet, or if he can ever have back. He’s thinking … that vasectomy … does it have to stay permanent forever?
With the end of the world coming and all, his potency is truly limited. If he, or Clarkie, or whatever survivors like Greg they might someday meet, ever wanted what he was made of, Sam would be handicapped forever. Castrated in a sense, not by birth or by accident, but by a choice made for a world that no longer existed. He doesn’t want to be this way anymore, sure every moment that he can’t seed anyone or anything, that he can’t wield that power. For the world he’s going into, the way he imagines it at least, he rather his default option be the other way. Instead of always being impotent in a sense, he’d rather be potent, and careful. He wants that potential back if he can have it, and he starts calling around to doctors’ offices to see who can do an emergency vasectomy reversal. Everyone is quick to tell him that the reversal is no guarantee that he’ll get back what he meant to snip, but the chances are good. Everyone is also quick to tell him that under no circumstances will they be performing such a thing on anyone with only a few days’ notice. No way, no how, no amount of money will change their minds. What’s the hurry, they think, better to be safe than sorry, right? Wrong. Better to be sewed and stowed before the bombs hit; it’s Sam’s only hope to get the surgery ASAP and recover on his own. He wants to try to do it if he can, because he knows that a lack of effort right now will mean a lifetime of regret underground for being too much of a wuss to even attempt it. Why not bribe someone, why not be a dick and insist on it? As long as he doesn’t get into serious trouble before Sunday, there will be no consequences for his actions, only his inactions.
Finally Sam finds a doctor’s office that knows his name. The office lady suspects it first.
“Sam Weaver? Like the guy in Frank Justice?”
“That’s me!” Sam says, perking up hoping that this might be the luck he’s been looking for. “I’m in town for a … wedding.” Sam doesn’t want to say funeral, he wants to keep this woman sweet on him and happy. “I’m actually calling because I have a very strange request. You see … the wedding … it’s mine!” The woman squeals, and Sam can’t believe he finally struck this genius goldmine. She’ll never know the difference, and what a reason to want an emergency reversal of a vasectomy—I’ve finally found the one and golly it’s time to start a family right away. True love, at last my days of keeping myself from another are over, help me, kind woman; help me be the best man I can be when I say I do this Sunday.
It works! She’s charmed, and very eager to tell him that the doctor himself loves Sam on that show too. She puts him on hold and runs to ask the doc what he would do to meet Sam Weaver. Sam’s willing to promise anything. “I’ll come to your next birthday party, your birthday can come to the set, get the best tour we’ve got, I’ll take you out to dinner with me and my beaming spouse, let’s make it a double date at the best restaurant in Los Angeles, wherever you like, you make a happy ma
n even happier, sure I’ll come in today for the consultation and sign autographs on whatever you hand me.” And so Sam does! He comes by and gets ushered in as soon as the last patient is out. He signs a few headshots he keeps on him always, he poses for pictures with everyone who wants one, and he makes the appointment for first thing tomorrow morning, so long as he doesn’t eat or drink any more today, and so long as his bloodwork, which giggly nurse/office lady is happy to stay late and run, comes back pretty good, it’s a go. Good thing Sam laid off popping pills as soon as he started laying with Clarkie—that’ll be the only way his blood is clean enough to be safely put under. It’s sort of sweet, in a way; Clarkie’s making all of this happen and he doesn’t even know it yet. Sam isn’t going to tell him until it’s a sure thing, though. He has someone else he needs to talk to about it first.
Someone will have to pick up Sam’s slack tomorrow on running errands for Armageddon. He knows exactly who to ask, and it’s the guy who’s best suited to hear this news first, and to talk with Sam about it. He goes to Greg to ask this favor.
After dinner (which Sam only pushes around his plate), Sam gestures to Greg and tells him he needs a private talk with him, and they take a walk together that Clarkie notices but doesn’t stop, he just watches them go. Sam holds up a finger to Clarkie so he knows they’re not sneaking off in secret, but they are, because Sam has a secret.
“I need to ask you a big favor. I need you to do all of my runs tomorrow so I can get a procedure done before it’s too late. It’s … ah. I want to get my vasectomy reversed.”